Texas Review of Law & Politics, Volume 20, Number 2, Spring 2016 Page: 198
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Texas Review of Law & Politics
phenomenon as one moves down the tiers of law schools."3 The
lower ranked the school, the deeper it must generally go in cherry-
picking applicants to fill its minority ranks-resulting in a greater
disparity between minorities and non-minorities and a greater
likelihood that the school admits some students not suited to
attend any law school whatsoever."4
Sander points out that one study showed racial preferences only
increase African-American admissions by about 14%-the
remainder is reshuffling placement."5 For this small group of
African-Americans who never would have been admitted anywhere
without race-based admissions (constituting one-seventh of the
African-American students attending law schools), their prospects
are grim.l"6 Fewer than one-third of them ever become lawyers."7
Sander, Taylor, and other scholars see the admissions programs'
biggest effect, however, in shifting the level/tier school to which
the remaining 86% of African-American law students are admitted
(and attend) .118 That is, they say that African-Americans are
overwhelmingly likely to be admitted to a school above their
academic abilities, and this fish-out-of-water environment harms the
very students that the admissions programs are designed to help.119
Sander employs the term "mismatch" to explain this phenomenon
driving low minority outcomes.'0
By admitting mismatched minority students to schools higher
113. Id. at 19.
114. Id. at 20. This phenomenon might be changing, though. Robert Steinbuch
commented:
[A]s top schools struggle to maintain the quality of their student body, these
institutions inevitably drop minority admissions, due to the mismatched average
academic profiles of minority cohorts resulting from the unique outcome-driven
competition that I' ve described here before. While these high-level schools are
strongly concerned about the quality of their admissions, lower-tiered schools
generally, are forced to focus more on survival.... Given the overall drop in
applications but the greater relative availability of minority applications to lower-
tiered schools caused by top schools eschewing these candidates, lower-level
schools quite predictably have increased their admission of these now-available
candidates. As I previously discussed in the context of the mismatch
phenomenon, the result generally will be quite good for these students, as their
profiles will better match their admitting schools. And for the schools that are
admitting previously unavailable, well-matched students, they are increasing their
likelihood of survival without altering their overall academic profile.
Robert Steinbuch, Should Law Schools Merge, Dissolve, or Adapt? NATIONAL JURIST (Mar. 12,
2015), http://bit.ly/1nG8cFI [perma.cc/4XYL-6W6G].
115. SANDER & TAYLOR, supra note 1, at 61.
116. Id.
117. Id.
118. Id.
119. Id.
120. Id. at 4.198
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University of Texas at Austin. School of Law. Texas Review of Law & Politics, Volume 20, Number 2, Spring 2016, periodical, March 2016; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth838701/m1/44/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.